I was wondering what opinions people have regarding whether to use tap water or spring water when brewing? I know that some people feel that tap water can effect the outcome of your beer dependent on the quality of tap water.
Tap water or spring water?
- Thread starter galacticbrewing12
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
I use my tap water. But, my house has a 'whole house' filter for sediment and I have a carbon filter on my brewing rig. A general rule is: If your water taste good, go ahead and brew with it. However, if your water comes from a municipality, I would probably stick with spring water. The chlorine, fluoride, etc. can be detrimental to the yeast, let alone the beer. Trail and error is the only real test. Make a brew using tap water and see what you think. You may be lucky (like I feel I am), and find your house water is just fine with you.
rockfish42
Well-Known Member
Do you have a water report for your tap water? As long as you remove the chlorine/chloramine most tap water should do just fine though.
I was able to get a water report, but it did not include anything regarding pH, calcium, biocarbonate, sulfate or anything like that. So, I couldn't really tell too much, but I did send a follow up e-mail to my water provider to see if they might be willing to share that information to give myself a better idea.
I strictly use Reverse Osmosis but I am going to be doing a batch or 2 with my city water to see what, if any difference there is. I WILL be removing the chlorine with a basic carbon filter, but nothing else.
I do soft water and RO for a living so to me you HAVE to use only the best water to get the best beer(sounds logical). But, after reading more and more about different waters used throughout the world I need to do my own little test if nothing, for "just to see".
If you normally use your water for drinking/cooking, then it should be OK for brewing.
I do soft water and RO for a living so to me you HAVE to use only the best water to get the best beer(sounds logical). But, after reading more and more about different waters used throughout the world I need to do my own little test if nothing, for "just to see".
If you normally use your water for drinking/cooking, then it should be OK for brewing.
I appreciate your feedback and will try using my tap water for a smaller batch just to see if there is any noticable difference. Based upon everything I have read you basically have to experiment and find what works for you. Some water is better for certain types of beers, so I'm hoping that it doesn't effect too much with the stouts and porters that I love. I am fairly certain that I have hard water, so I know that I could run the risk of having some residue left over from my boil based upon the contents of my water. Up till now I have been brewing with spring water that I have been buying, but am starting to consider just using tap water to cut down on my expenses.
Well I just got a call from the water company and they indicated that they are willing to give me the details I requested. Unfortunately they cannot e-mail them, but they are willing to mail it to me. I figure I will wait until I get the details from them to have a better idea of my water quality. Being that I already have two beers on tap right now it will probably be a few week until I brew again, so it works out fine. I will be interested to see what the details say about my water quality.
pcollins
Well-Known Member
I use tap water for all my brewing. It's easy, cheap and it's right there in the tap all the time. On paper it may be that I don't have "suitable" brewing water but in practice it makes very good beer. The only way to know if it works is to try it and see how it goes.
Style-wise I wouldn't worry about it. I have a softener and I'm making a variety of styles and they're fine.
Style-wise I wouldn't worry about it. I have a softener and I'm making a variety of styles and they're fine.
There is also the difference between extract and all grain brewing. If you're using extract, the water plays a much different/lesser role, because the extract manufacturer already took care of water profiles, and you don't have to worry about pH, or anything else, for the most part (as long as your water is good to drink, it's good for brewing extract).
I ended up using just tap water for a small 2.5 gallon batch of porter to see how it turns out. I just brewed it on Sunday, but the fermentation has been going well and will take a look this coming Sunday to see where things stand.
Well I just got my water report with the details and determined that I have fairly hard water as I expected. This is not a bad thing being that I love stouts and porters it is the perfect type of water for it. I used some of tools in John Palmer's "How to Brew" book to help calculate the necessary numbers to determine what type of beers are appropriate. It was pretty easy especially using the Excel calculator on the website to determine all the numbers. I think from now on I will just decide to use my tap water. If decide to make a clearer beer like a Pale Ale or Pilsner I may either use calcium sulfate or calcium chloride to lower the pH or just use spring water instead.
It's more important to make sure you don't have chloramines in the water than worrying about the actual make up. chloramines don't boil off, and both chloramines and chlorine ruin the taste of beer.
Using CaS04 and CaCl2 to lower the pH won't work well. In order to drop the pH enough, there would be a huge flavor impact. Using distilled water or reverse osmosis water to dilute the tap water would work far better, depending on the make up of your tap water.
I confirmed that I do not have chloramines in my water looking at the water report. Plus based upon the chloride level only being 120 (well within the 0-250 range) I don't see that as an issue. So I would say I will start to just use my tap water going forward and if it is really a concern depending on the style of beer I am brewing I will just use spring water for that batch.
Chloride should be under 100, but I was talking about chlorine and not chloride in that post.
Okay, gotcha. From what I see regarding Chloramines the levels were at 1.3 ppm and the chlorine was 2 ppm. From what I can tell that is well below the standard of 4 ppm. My understanding is that nowadys almost all tap water has some chlorine in it in order to keep it clean from various contaminants.
Yes, that's true. But you don't want to use it for brewing if there are chloramines and/or chlorine unless you treat the water first with potassium metabisulfite. 1/2 campden tablet would treat 10 gallons of water. That would work for chlorine too.
I used palin distilled water in my 1st partial mash pale. Someone said that wouldn't be good for the flavor & body. I think so far it's fine. But I am a month away from tasting the final product. They also said spring water in a pm wouldn't be much better than distilled. I'm thinking otherwise. Who's right??
Distilled water is fine in a partial mash. Absolutely fine.
Thanks for that. I thought even the chilled topped off wort in the hydrometer tube tasted very clean & the hop flavor was tremendous. I just tasted a glass of what was left of the disstilled water that's been in the fridge since 10/9 when I brewed it up. Fresh,clean taste that reminds me of the creek water in PA that came out of the bedrock in our mountain. Kinda like winter water where ice has been forming in it or something like that. Nice flavor that is to say.
RIC0
Well-Known Member
gallon jugs of distilled from the local grocery for me.
you can smell the chlorine in my tap water, no thanks.
you can smell the chlorine in my tap water, no thanks.
Yeah I have started looking at options on how to filter out the chloramine, but it is looking like it might just be easier to get distilled water from my local home brew store.
If the only issue with your tap water is chloramine, then using campden tablets will fix it. If there are other issues (high alkalinity, for example), then using reverse osmosis water from the grocery store's big "water machine" would be a cheap and easy way to go.
Thank you for all the great advice.
Subsailor
Life is Tough, Stupid makes it Tougher
Going to Seward tomorrow, there's an artesian well along the road and I'm going to fill some jugs and try brewing with that.
Similar threads
